= VII =

Panic took hold of Khan; he had made a mistake. He knew he shouldn't have given her anything but had considered the killer a novice and figured they hadn't taken into account other chemicals to make it work faster. Clearly he was wrong.

Mira's stats were declining and doing so very quickly. Khan did another quick scan of her body, looking at the results as it went. He noticed her body temperature climbing. Khan turned to the panel on the wall and lowered the entire room's temperature to help and quickly set up what he needed. Not having time to worry about separating the compounds in his blood, Khan took a syringe and drew out some of his blood. He quickly walked over and injected it into Mira. He hadn't planned to use his blood as a solution figuring with the way her body was reacting that he had the time but now, no.

It would have to do. He would not let her die, not with the progress he knew he could make with her. He knew her personality all too well now and knew exactly how to manipulate her. Especially now that he's shared himself with her some more, he knew exactly how much to tell her to draw her in for more but not enough that gave her the advantage and definitely nothing personal. Khan detested the idea of beginning from scratch with another person. It would set him back months and he did not want to remain in the service of Marcus for longer then was absolutely needed. Khan would not have that, especially if Marcus decided to assign a male jailer to him. Before he began with another scan though, Khan took a blood sample from Mira, hoping his blood wouldn't affect the results. He would take another one in a day or two, hoping she would still be out though he had very little doubt someone could put her under without her noticing it.

He was determined to figure out a normal solution and in the process find out who had made the poison to begin with. After that was sorted out, Khan began the real work while he still had time.


Sighing in relief, mostly because he would not have to restart with someone else, Khan saw her stats start to improve after a few short minutes. It was longer than he expected but still in good time. Khan began to study the body scan he had started, this time taking into account everything that he saw. What Khan saw, confounded him. Scattered throughout her body were nodules, from what Khan could make out from the scan, a sort of energy nodule, if that were possible. Khan looked down at Mira, curiousness and questions looming in his mind and then he turned back to the scanner, taking note of the implant at the base of her brain.

The technology implanted into her body was well beyond his years… 'for now' Khan thought as he tapped away and sent the data he had collected to his PADD, long having hacked it so it was now for his eyes only. Continuing his search for anything different other then the obvious, Khan found Mira's immune system, health and regeneration much like his. It was faster than a normal humans but not as fast as an Augments.

That wasn't the only thing off. Her entire body screamed experimentation but all of the symptoms were subdued, hidden behind a wall of some sort. If Khan hadn't known better, he would say she was a child of Human and Augment breeding. The females of his race were sterile and his crew were the only Augments left and he remembered the day augments were wiped from the planet, along with the male offspring, nothing was left alive if it had augmented DNA save for him and his crew. They had even destroyed all the DNA samples and anything that could be used to make more of them in the future. Khan was curious what species they had mixed into her and that maybe the chip in her brain was stopping any symptoms from showing on the outside. That thought made Khan's brain swirl with ideas of what she could do but he was interrupted from his musings from the noise outside the door, clearly something was decided upon.

Pocketing Mira's blood sample and erasing all of her data off the system in effortless tapping on his PADD, he put it down and grabbed a blanket from the cabinet by the door and wrapped her in it but not before noticing the trinket around her neck, resisting the urge to rip it from her. With a long sigh Khan placed his PADD on her stomach, picking her up and left the sickbay. Doctors and nurses called after him, which he just ignored completely muttering a "She's fine" just to placate them as a means to get them to leave him and her alone.


A week later

Khan had been working out of their quarters as a way to keep people away from her but also to be able to keep an eye on Mira as she recovered, to study her in secret. Though the healing process was slower then he thought it should have been, Mira finally awakened. If the noise from her room was any indication that is. Khan sighed in relief; it had been hell, running interference for her. Making sure no one attempted to kill her again and putting up with that horrible creature she loved so much and had named Puffin. He now understood why the Klingons hated those things so much. Khan had contemplated just telling Marcus to gather all of the Tribbles they had and to throw them at the Klingons.

That should've been sufficient enough but Khan dare never say those words out loud. Mira being out for this long had given him time to think about the situation and he saw all the advantages laid out before him but those advantages would only exist if Mira was willing to play along… 'When did I start calling her Mira?' Khan questioned himself as he stepped into her room. Seeing her sitting upright, head tilted slightly and gaze not focused on anything in particular but as Khan got closer to her. His presence grabbed her attention and she looked up to meet his gaze. There, however, wasn't anything behind it. No, every time she had looked at him before, there was an emotion there. He could always see it clear as day but now with her stare on him and nothing behind those dark forest green eyes Khan froze, unsure but slowly emotion filled them. 'Confusion' he thought. "I was in sickbay." she whispered, voice frail and tired, she looked horrible. Skin pale, hair a mess and dark circles under her eyes. Khan wasn't sure if she looked worse or better. Before while she had been covered in glass, cuts and forming bruises she had retained her colour but now, though all her wounds were healed and not a single mark was on her skin. She seemed to look ghostly.

'She'll look better once she gets some sun light and actual food.' "I brought you back to your room when I fixed you." He told her the truth. He, of course, wasn't going to tell her all of it but she didn't seem to notice, just nodded her head. "I'd forgotten what it was like to be sick, I don't like it." She muttered out and Khan raised a brow at her. "When was the last time you were ill?" he questioned. Honest curiousness dancing behind his eyes and Mira simply shrugged her shoulders and shook her head but then stopped as she seemed to contemplate her answer. "When I was little, I was always sick but I don't remember it much, four and below I think".

Again nodding his head Khan went into his own world. 'It may have to do with the nodules; they looked like they had been there for years. Maybe they were placed there then but why put them there in the first place? Why genetically alter her to begin with? From what I saw of her body she's been severally experimented on but why…' Khan had a mountain of questions and wanted to ask but stopped himself when he recalled her reaction in sickbay about him seeing her scans. She didn't want him to. She didn't want him to see something he shouldn't. 'She knows she's been altered… is what's inside her what her father took? If he took it to begin with that is.' Khan continued to think, so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't even notice Mira get up and walk out of the room until he was going to ask her a question and looked around noticing her absence.

Then he heard the shower start up and he sighed, walking out of the room and going back to what he had been doing before hand, not really focusing on the weapon. No, his thoughts trailed to the endless questions and how he was going to pry the answers from her. She was more interesting now then she had been before. She was a puzzle to be solved now, not just someone to manipulate, something he would take great joy in doing but how to go about doing both of those things was the tricky part. Khan had thought about leaving it alone; to let her have her privacy, at least on the matter of her genetic code. Khan knew that he could be difficult and touchy at times about his Augment DNA and the experiments; the merciless tests that were run on him and while it had made him better and he loved it. He was proud of it; he however didn't like going into the details but then he would think of when she was altered.

What had they changed, what would she have become if they had left her alone to be a normal human. Khan's mind for some reason had slipped back to that day in her lab, recalling their first real conversation, her words echoing in his mind. 'She wants to find a way to reverse what's happened to her… so people won't look at her like she's a monster.' Khan thought sadly, he had on occasion recalled that conversation, her words never seeming to leave him.

He could recall all the looks he had ever been received from any being, from his Augmented family, it was love and understanding of one another. Humans fear and hate… they looked at him like he was a monster… even the human females he bedded had given him that look when he was done with them but he had expected those looks because of who he became, of how he treated people but then he remembered how it felt when they were killing off his race because they had grown to strong, because they were far too feared to be talked to… Khan of course had very little doubt he would have in fact talk to anyone who came to him hoping for peace in some fashion.

He would like to think he would have but he had been too far gone when they started to kill every augment, they had pushed him too many times and so reason was lost to him, making peace with his enemies was lost to him.

If it had been other augments, Khan probably wouldn't have cared all that much but no, they had slaughtered so many of his family. Though it did make him laugh that maybe he, his race, could have gotten along better, if they had they could have won that war and they may have still been ruling this planet and they may have even become kinder, or he would have at least. Abel was always the pain in his side, too kind for his own good. He had found humans interesting, something to be cherished on some levels and even loved, no doubt if things had gone different Abel would have tried to change Khans perspective on them, convince him to be kinder than he was but in his own defence he was already kinder than anyone else in that age who ruled.

Khan hadn't felt the need to slaughter innocent people every day and during his reign it lacked the internal wars of aggression. Khan tried to shake his thoughts from his head, remembering his dear Abel, missing him so much his heart clenched. Khan had many times said being Augmented was the greatest thing to happen in his life, it was the most important thing but he had been lying, trying to appear strong and without weakness.

No the greatest thing to him, the most important were Nicole and Abel, his most cherished and loved comrades. Khan had actually cursed his nature more than once since his awakening, at least the emotional side of things. He felt things so much more strongly than normal humans and from what Khan could tell it seems the humans have begun to feel less and less; Mira had been a rarity since his awakening. Her emotions displayed for the world to see on her face, her heart on her shoulder, it seemed to Khan that she felt nearly as strongly as he did but that's what Khan had thought and now he knew better.

She was a liar, a very good one. Khan had very no doubt that she could be whatever she chooses to be, a commanding officer with no remorse, a seductive dominatrix able to lore any man in and then the Doctor she now played, innocent and full of love and compassion. With those thoughts Khans curiosity about her nature began again.

His curiosity eating away at him, Khan hadn't notice when Mira had come out of the shower, nor when she walked right over to him and knelt down beside him, not until her voice, small and sweet brought him out of his mind. "Khan" she had said his name to get his attention, turning his head slightly to look at her, Mira smiled at him. The sweetest and sincerest smile he had ever seen on anyone really. With that smile she leaned in and placed her lips high on his cheek bone and pressed for a good five seconds before she pulled away, the smile still on her lips "Thank you for saving me" she spoke in that same soft tone, Khan noticed that a small number of tears had welled up in her eyes as she stood up and walked back over to her room.

Khan stared after her and he wasn't entirely sure for how long, before he moved his hand placing his finger tips over where her lips had been, her smile still etched into his mind. Khans anger flared instantly, it had only been for a minutes but in that minute he had forgotten what she was, who she was working for. Despite his knowledge he fell for the sweet innocent act she kept around her but his anger was wavering as the image of her kept appearing. He had never known such a talented liar could ever exist, he knew people were good. Some on a level even he failed at times to reach but this was some new level that only she was allowed on. The tears, the smiles, the kiss she had given him all telling him she was a person to trust, that she was this nice and naïve, that she did indeed keep her heart on her shoulder for the world to see but Khan ignored his instincts, pushing them down and silencing them.

It wasn't the first time they had come screaming up but he had been proven that his instincts weren't always reliable. He had been fooled once before by someone, his instincts told him that he could trust them, that they were worthy but he had been wrong… so very wrong and Nicole had been hurt badly, if it hadn't been for her his entire family would have been taken from him, she had paid the price for his recklessness. Khan laughed bitterly as he recalled those events, how very ironic that his family had been taken from him anyway, to be held just an inch beyond his reach… As Khan looked back on his memories, he of course noted the vast differences and one of those being that unlike before he had indeed felt uneasy at times and now with Mira… he didn't feel that at all.

Everything was different and difficult about her and it seemed to make him hate her all the more.


It had been over an hour before Mira re-emerged from her room, looking better then she had in the previous hour and smiled at him "I'm going to get some food, do you want anything?" she asked with a big grin on her face and Khan simply shook his head at her staring down at his work and cursing himself into not giving her even a glance, Mira shrugged her shouldered and headed for the door "Do be careful, I would hate for the time I spent saving you to go to waste" Khan spoke without meaning to, tacking on the last bit as a means to save himself in a sense.

Mira turned, smile still in place as she looked at him and Khan glanced up from his work to peer at her through his lashes, he noticed that her smile would get bigger then more she looked at him "Stop smiling" he muttered out annoyed. She was beginning to infuriate him with that smile, letting out a small chuckle. "Nope" Mira said turning but stopped a moment and turned back to look at him "Check your PADD" she said softly and then turned back around and exited their quarters and once she had gone Khan let out a heavy sigh, leaning his head back against the cushions. 'Maybe I wont try after all' Khan thought as the image of her leaning over and kissing his cheek stayed in his mind, the thank you she had given him it had been off a little, Khan got the feeling that it wasn't entirely for just saving her.

She had probably assumed that he had done as she asked, hadn't looked at her scans, that the thank you was for listening to her "What a naïvely optimistic stupid girl" Khan muttered out, his hand going to his hair and slicking it back and off his forehead, out of his eyes. Khan supposed not all of her personality was fake, he couldn't see anyone faking every single aspect of themselves and then sighed, thinking back onto her scan and what he had seen "Unless those nodules give her strength I do not possess I do not see how she could subdue me" Khan commented dryly, trying to figure out what the hell Marcus was thinking when he assigned her to him.

Khan could understand assigning a nature liar to him, to ease him into trusting the person but that was it, on the bright side it was all going to work for him in the end. "It will be easy to trick and manipulate her at least" he said before looking down at his PADD and noticing the new message he had received. Khan quickly tapped to open it and stared wide eyed at what lay before him. Khan tore his eyes from the picture to read the message below 'Thank you again for saving me, I thought you might like this. I've had it for a while and I wanted to give it to you but I thought you might get angry or it might hurt you in some way. Sorry it took me awhile to deliver. Thank you again. Mira XoXo' Khan read a few times before he moved his eyes back up to the picture of Nicole and Abel.

He remembered that day clearly and smiled before he frowned as he looked to the door again and sighed "She's going to make this complicated, easy but complicated" Khan muttered before he turned back to the weapon in his lap and started his work again.